Chapter 25 Rock
ROCK
“Stop,” I said with a whisper.
“Finally,” Brewer said. “Now get that fucking thing going.”
“I’m working on it,” I said.
I closed out the tracker and pulled up the application I had built into my phone.
I toggled a few settings and turned up the volume a bit, then motioned for Brewer to pull out his phone.
I wanted to record all of this shit. I wanted us to have identifiable proof as to what was going on.
Brewer pulled out his phone and I reached for it, navigating to his voice record before turning it on.
Then, I pressed the button on my end that turned Mick’s phone into a microphone.
“Brewer’s fine, unfortunately,” Mick said. “But I got the house cleaned up. No traces of any of us in there.”
“Good,” a Black Saddle said. “That’s good. What’s their next move.”
“Not sure, but I know something’s up. Rock asked me to lunch today, and that fucker never does shit like that. I don’t know what the hell’s going on with the club, but something’s not right. You guys hear from Rex at all?” Mick asked.
“We went to talk to him a few days ago in jail. The lawyer for the RICO case came by to see him but wasn’t happy he didn’t have any information. You gotta give us something, Mick. Your worth is only as good as your information,” a Black Saddle said.
“What the fuck?” Brewer asked.
“Shut up,” I said with a whisper.
“I got that, man. Damn,” Mick said. “No need to get gun happy right now. All I’ve got is what I told Axe in the shop today.
Brewer’s recuperated and off his pain meds, and he’s staying with that woman and that little girl.
Other than that, the club’s laying low. What the hell did you think they would do after we almost killed one of their men? ”
“He’s fucking ratting on our women!?” Brewer exclaimed.
I looked up and saw Brewer heading straight for the compound. I set the phones down and reached out for him, dragging his ass back into the shadows. I wrapped my arm around his neck while he fought, threatening to choke off his air supply.
“I’m going to kill him,” Brewer choked out.
“You can’t,” I said. “We gotta trap him. We’ve got him in a good spot. Keep a level fucking head.”
“He just ratted on--!”
I put my hand over his damn mouth to keep him from blowing our damn cover.
“I know that,” I said. “I know. And trust me, I’m ready to put a bullet in his dick. But we have to get more than this. Because by the sounds of it, Rex is our other informant for the RICO case.”
I turned Brewer around and watched his eyes bulge as I brought my finger to my lips.
“What’s the status on the RICO case?” Mick asked.
“According to Rex, they’re still a little shy on evidence to descend on the Dead Souls,” a Black Saddle said. “We need proof of what they’re doing. Proof of their money laundering and criminal activity. Something other than fucking hearsay. Which is why we’re paying you all the money we are.”
“And I told you, they’ve shut down those operations when you tried to pin Blaze’s death on Knox,” Mick said. “That’s The Dead Souls first fucking rule, Fang. Shut down the operations the second authorities even come close. It’s how they cover their asses in this town.”
“We hired you for fifty thousand dollars for every sliver of decent information you came with,” Fang said. “You really expect us to pay you tonight?”
“I do, once I tell you what else I’ve got,” Mick said.
I was hanging onto every fucking word with my hands clenched at my sides.
“Look, you want to push the Dead Souls out of Redding, right?” Mick asked.
“They’re a bunch of goody-two-shoe assholes,” Fang said. “Of course, we do. This is our town. Our turf.”
“The only upper-hand they have with you is being here longer. That’s it,” Mick said. “But, our little family is growing.”
“He is not,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Rod asked.
“Seems the guys in the club can’t keep it wrapped up long enough to pull themselves out of the hole they’ve dug for themselves. So, they’re stepping with lighter feet. Let Rex know that Grave knocked up his damn sister,” Mick said.
“I’m going to slaughter him,” Brewer said.
“And Knox? Expecting a kid with our damn lawyer,” Mick said.
“What the fuck is wrong with him?” I asked.
“Wait, can you get us proof he’s fucking the lawyer? Like, a fucking DNA test or something?” Fang asked. “They could use that for the RICO case. Get her and the whole damn firm thrown off the case for--”
“Conflict of interest,” Mick said.
“Holy shit. He’s ratting on our fucking women, Rock. He’s ratting on our fucking--!”
“Shut. The hell. Up,” I said.
My heart slammed against my chest. I waited. Listened. Because if Piper’s name fell off that fucker’s lips, they were all dying tonight. Every last one of them. I held my breath as all the guys on the other end laughed, Mick fucking included.
Diesel was going to rip this asshole limb from limb.
“What about this Rock guy? He got anyone he’s fucking?” Fang asked.
“Not to my knowledge, but he has been off the radar for a few days. Doesn’t hurt to take a look into it,” Mick said. “So, where the fuck’s my money?”
“Oh, you more than earned your money tonight, Mick. You want another fifty-grand? Get us proof that lawyer’s ripe with Knox’s kid. The second we toss her ass off the damn case, the government can swoop in, arrest all those fuckers, and Redding will have a hole that needs to be plugged,” Fang said.
I looked over at Brewer as the guys all began to talk at once.
I reached down for his phone and shut off the recording, then saved it as a file and sent it to myself.
I wanted backups of my backups. I wanted to put that recording in every fucking place I knew to put it.
I emailed it to myself and copied Brewer to it.
I sent it to him in a text message before saving it to a permanent file folder in my phone.
My hands shook with unadulterated rage as I handed him his phone back.
“Can we kill him now?” Brewer asked.
“We go back to Diesel with what we have. Then, yes. We kill that son of a bitch,” I said.
We walked our bikes back to our starting point before revving them up.
Then, we sped as fast as we could back to the lodge.
This couldn’t wait another fucking second.
We sped through town, ditching the cops whenever they put on their sirens and flashed their lights.
Nothing was stopping us from getting to that lodge.
Absolutely nothing. We had a very serious issue on our hands that was bigger than we originally thought.
And I had the proof to show the guys.
At the first stoplight we got caught at, I shot a text out to Diesel. He needed to call church and he needed to do it now. The light turned green, causing Brewer and I to tear away from the light.
“We headed to the lodge?” he asked.
I nodded my head while we soared through Redding, hitting the dusty roads as night blanketed our movements.
I took every fucking shortcut I knew. I destroyed backyards and woke up families in an effort to get back to my brothers.
All of us were in trouble, including our women.
Our children. The families we had roped into this shit.
I rode as fast as I could through the desert with Brewer hot at my side, his face burning with an anger I knew wouldn’t be satiated until blood was spilled.
For the first time in years, I knew we would see Diesel’s ruthless side.
I knew this would be the moment that flipped him from the analytical, diplomatic man he was into the ruthless torturer that had garnered him the strength to be our President.
The things he could come up with sent shivers down my own spine, but the fate that awaited Mick made me smile.
Mick was a fucking traitor, and he deserved everything coming at him.
Off in the distance, I heard bikes. The sounds of my brothers heading for the lodge.
I could tell by the way their engines revved that they flew at lightning speed, which meant my panic and my worry had been communicated through my message to Diesel.
I looked over at Brewer and he eyed me hard, then nodded his head before he pulled out in front of me.
It was time for us to decide. A choice that always altered the trajectory of a club like ours.
It was time to figure out how and when we would kill Mick.